ROCKY HILL – Titan Energy, New England’s premier provider of energy management and procurement services, and Tecogen, a next-generation manufacturer of distributed generation products, have teamed up once again to help “green up” a local YMCA branch.
The project, which began in the spring of 2017, was identified by the project development team at TitanGen, Titan Energy’s on-site generation arm. The team was led by General Manager Adam Teff and Bill Olderman, Titan’s New Jersey territory manager.
It will allow the New Jersey-based Lakeland Hill YMCA to produce roughly half of their electricity and hot water each year through a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system. Not only will this save the branch a significant amount of money, Teff said, but it will also aide in cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
The evaluative process led to a clear conclusion: the TecoPower 75 kW Combined Heat and Power system from Tecogen. The system will produce roughly half of the facility’s electricity and hot water demand each year at significantly lower cost, said Adam Teff, TitanGen’s General Manager. It will also dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions associated with electricity consumption from the local utility.
“We’re incredibly excited about our most recent Combined Heat and Power project at the Lakeland Hills YMCA. Not only will the 75 kW TecoPower system reduce the Y’s power consumption from the utility by nearly half, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly the same, but will also produce in excess of $35,000 in savings on an annual basis throughout the twenty-year contract term; all without requiring a single dollar of capital from the Y.”
— Adam Teff, General Manager, TitanGen
Tecogen project managers, lead by industry-veteran Rick Christian, will be performing the turnkey installation of the TecoPower system, custom-built heat exchanger and exhaust radiator, as well as performing all routine maintenance throughout the 25-year life of the equipment.
For those without first-hand knowledge of combined heat and power systems, the concept is straightforward: an internal combustion engine, like those found in personal automobiles but modified to run on natural gas, is used to create the mechanical force that spins a generator (instead of wheels). The electricity produced is “fed” into the building to offset electricity demand from the grid, which dramatically reduces the wasteful inefficiencies of traditional power production and consumption: line loss, thermal waste and costly transportation fees from the utility.
As the engine converts chemical energy (natural gas) into mechanical energy (force) through the process of combustion, waste heat is recovered from the engine block and “fed” into the hot-water system to offset work normally performed by the facility’s boilers. In the warmer months, this waste heat can be fed into an absorption chiller, which uses a complex chemical reaction to convert heat into cooling, instead of pulling electricity from the grid to power the conversion.
“Tecogen, as always, has been a fantastic development partner and working with the YMCA board of directors has been a healthy collaborative process, tailored to meet the timing requirements for ongoing programs and services offered by the Y,” Teff said. “Suffice it to say, everyone is ready for the system to become operational on November 1st!”
